Tips, advice, and blogs by our Typepad community.

Welcome to our special series on getting to know CSS! Every other week, we'll debut a new article full of valuable tips and tricks that will help you to understand how CSS works and how to apply it to your blog. We'll cover everything from the very basics, to fancy tricks, to the best way to find the code you need for your very own blog. Get ready to advance your skill set!

Now that we're all HTML experts (thanks to our Back To Basics To HTML series), it's time to move ahead and learn how to apply CSS to what we have built on our blogs. Today we'll be going over what CSS is, and how and when to use it.

What is CSS?

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and is used to style the markup language you've created on your site. CSS gives you more control and flexibility over your layout than what HTML can offer. HTML provides the foundation and content where CSS will enhance the presentation of the HTML. It is best to not mix CSS with HTML together which is why a stylesheet is saved separately.

Where can I add CSS on my blog?

On Typepad for Unlimited users and higher, we've made it easy to add custom CSS to your layout by going to Design > Custom CSS, there is no need to set up Advanced Templates. Some examples of element changes you can make are fonts, colors, column widths, background images, advanced positions and more.

CSS minimizes the amount of coding needed for your site which will save on loading time. For instance, if you have H2 sized headers throughout your blog but you wish to have them appear as bold, with HTML you will have to insert the bold HTML code <b></b> on every header which can be time consuming and clunky code-wise. With CSS, you can just set up all header elements to appear as bold at once.

How is CSS formatted?

The written format for CSS code is broken into two areas: the selector, which can be an Element, Class or ID; and then the property and property value. The selector and property info is grouped together within a curly brackets set.

An Element selector specifies HTML tags (e.g. p, img, a), which can be as general as applying to all instances of the tag selected, or can be a child of a specific class or ID

p { property: value; } .entry-body p { property: value; }

A Class is denoted by a period prefixed to the selector name. Classes are used for items that often appear in multiples (e.g. modules, list items, posts).

CSS classes are coded as: .element { property: value; }

IDs are used for when you want to specify one section of your layout (e.g. banner, navigation bar) and are denoted by prefixing the selector name with a hash or "#": #element { property: value; }

When can I use CSS?

CSS comes into play when you want to change or tweak your design and format. It is not used to add additional content like advertisements and third-party widgets.

Need CSS?

Yes

No

Position your Navigation Links or Banner?

X

Inserting Javascript?

X

Changing the size of your columns?

X

Change the font of your blog post titles?

X

Add an image as your background?

X

Hide post footer links like tags, comments, permalink?

X

Add to a blog post or comment?

X

Change default post font?

X

Add banner to pre-defined theme?

X

Add buttons, badges, widgets?

X

Ready to level up? You're in luck! Over the course of our Getting to Know CSS series, we will be going over other features and functions of CSS, teaching you about editing and adding elements to your stylesheets, and finding which classes will work best with your specific Typepad theme. Stay tuned!

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